


Passing Afternoon

by be_a_rebel



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_a_rebel/pseuds/be_a_rebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto isn't the person he was before Jack left. And maybe that's for the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing Afternoon

It's seven long years before he sees Jack again.

 

It's his sister-in-law's wedding, pretty Marie with her blue-black hair, blue ribbons in her hair, smiling anxiously up at her grinning husband. Christian.

 

Soon to be husband.

 

He's best man because Christian doesn't have male friends, he's Chris to no one, not even Marie.

 

So he's standing there, giving Sarah reassuring smiles because contrary to what she thinks, her sister really can't do better, she's pretty but that's it.

 

She lacks Sarah's innocence, lacks her sweet smile and forgiving mouth. She lacks what made him love Sarah, not when they met, not even after May was born (ramshackle wedding and all and since when did his life become a cliché, since when did condoms –Jack's – break?) but later, when May fell over, tears in her blue-Sarah eyes and her mother kissed her blonde-red hair and picked her up, quiet smile.

 

He loved his Sarah then. Not as she deserved but as he could. As much as he could.

 

He's smiling at his Sarah when Jack walks in so he doesn't notice him at first, doesn't hear the whispers or see the heads turning (That's Captain Harkness, isn't he as handsome as in the pictures, he hasn't aged a day.)

 

He won't age. Ever.

 

He doesn't see him until the ceremony starts and Sarah's uncle, a minister of some sort, probably the internet variety (he doesn't think much of his wife's family, content with his own) harps on and obviously the buzzing gets louder. He looks up then, they all do.

 

And there's Jack. Sitting in the back, near the lilies he painstakingly brought in. Next to Sarah's Great Aunt May, his daughter's namesake. A frightening thought indeed.

 

He looks at Jack and Jack smiles. That I'm-back-did-you-miss-me-am-I-not-fantastic? smile.

 

And he wants to vomit. He looks down and then up at Sarah again. Sweet, innocent Sarah.

 

"Can I have your autograph?" James, his James, with a missing front tooth, clambering over chairs to get to his hero, his saviour, Captain Harkness himself and he can't help but watch as Jack's smile changes, grows more real (more beloved, he thinks, he cringes) as Jack takes the pen in James' hand and signs on his little cuff.

 

He thinks idly that that's going to tick Sarah off and James isn't getting sweets for a week.

 

Then he notices that Andrew has stopped droning on and everyone is staring at Jack, bride and groom included. Jack hands back the pen and looks up again, at him, raising an eyebrow and really, that's it.

 

"Sir, if you've come to see me, I think it would be best if you'd wait outside." That's it, that's it, indifferent, no clenched teeth, not in front of the children, not in front of his in-laws. Not in front of Sarah.

 

Jack's face falls. He tries not to feel a bit of triumph but he feels he's earned it. The years have been long. Especially the first few.

 

Jack gets up, even as James casts him a look of betrayal and even May, standing beside them, little flower girl shoots her father a reproving look.

 

Andrew goes on.

 

* * *

 

He never remembers the rest of the ceremony, not the exchange of rings, not the kiss, not May's joyous laugh. People talk about it later, calling it a beautiful wedding but he can't recall a second, not after Jack leaves.

 

He recalls the aftermath perfectly.

 

Striding out, into the reception area where Jack's chatting up a waitress (of course) and stopping short.

 

He remembers dimly thinking that a punch would be appropriate here, that Jack's really asking for it, that after all he put him and Gwen through, so soon after Tosh and Owen, when he was still keeping coffee on Tosh's desk every Monday, still approaching the autopsy room anticipating mockery.

 

After all that he should punch Jack. Kick him. Scream at him.

 

He does none of those things.

 

* * *

 

"Ianto."

 

He doesn't reply. Just looks. He hasn't aged a day. He has, he knows it, a few wrinkles, a few gray hairs. He's still thin, James and May see to that.

 

Jack sighs. "Look, you have the right to be angry."

 

He smiles. "I suppose I do sir."

"We're back to that then? Sir?" The 'I leave and you hide behind a mask of formality' is unspoken perhaps because it doesn't need to be said, perhaps because it isn't something Jack would ever say.'

 

"Did we ever leave it?" He knows his smile isn't bitter. Sad. But not bitter. The bitterness has gone from him. Somehow.

 

Something tugs at him and he looks down, and can't help smiling. His May. Sweet in a gaudy pink frock Sarah's mother would put her in. Sweet with her Sarah-dimple. She looks nothing like him. She means everything to him.

 

He picks her up. Kisses her soft, covered in flour cheek (even Sarah can't keep her away from a place where there's cake) and nests her in the crook of his arm, letting her wrap her sticky fingers in his hair, croon against him. She looks up at Jack, who's fascinated, captivated and he finds that his smile is growing wider. Of course Jack loves his daughter. Jack always loved kids.

 

"Hi."

 

She blushes, hiding her face in his shoulder and he can't help but laugh. Of course his daughter loves Jack.

 

Who doesn't.

 

"What's her name?"

 

"May." She mutters, not content to be talked around.

 

He looks up at Jack, happy Jack. "She's mine."

 

There's that tightness. He regrets it immediately.

 

"You're.."

 

"Married. Yes. You just invaded my sister-in-law's wedding."

 

Sarah comes out, clutching James and raises her eyebrows at him, quietly questioning, never demanding, his Sarah. Jack stares at her blatantly and he knows he should feel the urge to kick him. But he feels nothing. Nothing at all.

 

He turns back.

 

"She's beautiful."

 

He smiles, genuine. "I know."

 

"And the little boy?"

 

"My son. James."

 

Everyone's watching now. Again. He relents.

 

"Come and eat. We'll talk afterwards."

 

Jack nods, eyes never drifting.

 

* * *

 

He sits with his family, May in his lap, she's clingy today and Sarah's mom tells him to enjoy it, they leave so soon and so he does, laughing as she smudges his face with cake, more on her dress than on the plate.

 

He dances with his wife, soft ballad, and thinks of another wedding where he danced with someone else.

 

It seems like a lifetime ago. Gwen has a son and lives in another part of Cardiff now. They exchange Christmas cards and once in a while one calls the other, drunk, and things are usually said involving Jack and bestiality and can Gwen curse, oh can she.

 

He thinks, it was a lifetime ago. Sarah is nothing like Jack. She's entirely focused on him, face pressed to his shoulder. His hand on her back (same place) and he breathes in and breathes out, watching her hair move. Curls today. She curls it for special events. Otherwise it's straight like May's, wavy but straight.

 

He can feel Jack's eyes the whole time.

 

He's amazed no one's asked about the Captain yet (papers, books, tv, UNIT screaming at them both, changing names in documents, Idris and Jen, they've never been inventive and leaving then, not retconned, God knows how but free. At last.)

 

He keeps waiting. But he seems to be getting a grace period. Or maybe they're in awe. He smiles at the thought.

 

Sarah puts her arms around his neck and watches him. His beautiful wife in her beautiful blue dress with her beautiful hair and her beautiful eyes.

 

She doesn't say a word. He loves her in that moment, as he did in that first moment he loved her, that moment that came so late, so heavy and Sarah, Sarah, he vowed to do her no harm or was that another type of vow but well, it should be this kind.

 

She says nothing.

 

Jack's still there when they wrap up.

 

He half thinks he wished Jack would be gone but he knows it was a half wish, the kind you never want to come true.

 

He presses the car keys into Sarah's hand, plea in his eyes and she just nods and hugs him, soft kiss to his cold cheek.

 

He loves her so much.

 

When it gets dark they sit on a bench outside. He stares at the badly lit garden and is glad they had the ceremony in the day.

 

Jack is quiet beside him. For a while.

 

"When?"

 

"Two years after you left."

 

"How'd..?"

 

"Got drunk at a club, knocked her up. Married her." Grew to love her later, he doesn't say. His words are a betrayal enough. But he doesn't lie to Jack, not after all they've been through. Even if the reverse isn't true. He isn't angry though. He isn't.

 

"Do you…"

 

"Yes." He bites off, because that Jack can't ask him. Not after seeing sweet Sarah, who could help loving her.

 

Owen could help loving Tosh. The thought comes unbidden, and feels sick at it, hurt at it because they stacked Tosh in the freezer, literally and she should have been loved by Owen, she had the best heart, even more than Gwen's. But she wasn't.

 

And then Jack left.

 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner Ianto."

 

"I know." And he does know, he saw it when Jack was watching him. Jack still cares. He always did.

 

Just not enough.

 

"I came here because…I wanted to ask you to come back to…"

 

He's shaking his head already, fervently, standing up, hands his pockets, what Sarah laughingly calls his defensive position, Sarah in her blue nightie, loose and old, her blonde hair sweeping over her shoulders as she fell on the bed when he straddled her, laughing.

 

Laughing.

 

He feels Jack shift behind him. Come up behind him and there are those hands and he sags, he can't help it because Jack, Jack, and he's missed him, he has, all those nights, all 2555 of them and he can't help but turn around, even though he shouldn't (that way lies madness) but he does it anyway.

 

Rests his forehead against Jack's. Feels Jack cup the back of his neck. Feels the kiss coming, this is what Jack does, he thinks, somewhat hysterically, this is his MO, he needs to stop watching American television, no matter how much Sarah likes it and then Jack is kissing him and his eyelids flutter shut, traitors.

 

And it's Jack. Next his hand will flow to small of back and he'll whimper and Jack will smile against his mouth and he'll sigh against Jack's mouth and clutch at his arms and Jack will kiss him on his chin and his neck and kiss his collar, a salute to his suits and then his collarbone, through his shirt because Jack knows him, knows that makes him shiver.

 

He knows all this. So he turns his face so that Jack's lips end up on his ear.

 

And Jack pauses. Hand drops away.

 

Jack smiles. Sadly. He wills it not to hurt but it does. He's never been good at denying Jack something he wants. He's not good at it now.

 

They stare at each other.

 

"Don't go to Gwen." Jack blinks. He isn't sure where that came from either.

 

"Just. Don't." He knows he's going to feel off-balance for days, that he'll drift while May pulls at his coat sleeve, that he'll smile at Sarah with unseeing eyes.

 

He doesn't doubt that Gwen will say no. But he knows it will hurt. And they've both been through enough.

 

Jack doesn't answer but he can see the acquiescence in his eyes. Jack steps back.

 

They don't say goodbye. They don't need to.


End file.
